Travels with Gunther and Kara

This month we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of the full time lifestyle on June 15. Exactly one year ago we pulled out from Camp Horizons headed back to Fairfax, VA with our new home. I figured that the anniversary was worth a little introspective/evaluation.

A few statistics of our first year:

Number of campsites: 42

Longest stay: 110 days at Fort Myers, FL

Shortest stay: overnight (7 times)

Average length of stay: 7.75 days (excludes Fort Myers and the overnight stops)

Number of nights without full hookups: 14 no sewer, 13 no sewer or  water, no boon docking stops, 20 days on 30 amp power, remaining days 50 amp power…so 87% of the time we had full 50 amp hookups and 93% of the time we had electrical/water/sewer hookups. Since 30 amps really isn’t a limitation unless you need to run air conditioners only having 30 vice 50 amps isn’t any burden at all.

Total towing miles: 9,497

Total driving miles (car): 28,189; of these 9,497 were while moving with BAT and another 18,692 were non towing…i.e., doing fun stuff, running errands, and other stuff while parked. 

Expenses

I was going to total up our entire spending and categorize it like our friend Howard from RV-Dreams does…but decided that was too much trouble and nobody cares much about the details anyway…not to mention the idea that I wasn’t really comfortable putting all those precise income and outlay numbers out there. First, it’s nobody else’s business and second I don’t want to make anyone feel superior or inferior based on any numbers I might publish. So; suffice to say that we’re living comfortably on Neil’s Navy pension, Connie’s ACP Pension, and the income from her part time job with Northern Virginia Community College…without spending any of our “retirement” money at this point. If any of our readers are considering a similar lifestyle and would like to have some more detail please let us know via a comment with your email and we’ll talk offline. about it.

Biggest Pluses: Seeing all the cool places we have been and being amazed that we’re not actually spending any of our “retirement money” yet; and then moving someplace new before you get bored.

Biggest Minuses: There have been a couple of these. Finding doctors in semi-emergency mode is a pain and we realized we could have retired earlier given the state of our finances. Following that would be rig issues…getting things fixed at the New Horizons factory works pretty well but getting things fixed on the road is much harder. The factory service rep essentially leaves you on your own to find repairs and then it’s an issue of who has to pay. While we love our New Horizons Majestic and would not have bought anything else (or not bought it given the issue we have had)…and despite all the issues being relatively minor; getting things fixed under our “2 year hitch to bumper warranty) has been…well, let’s call it problematic to be diplomatic. The warranty page does state they have a 2 year warranty on materials and workmanship but then in the fine print talks about components being covered by separate vendor warranties. What they don’t tell you in the fine print is that these vendor warranties are only for a year and (we have yet to get a decent answer as to whether there is really a full 2 year warranty or whether it’s a 2 year warranty except when it’s not; and have not gotten a decent answer as to whether the vendor items with 1 year warranty are covered by New Horizons for the second year under their warranty. Connie’s biggest minus would probably be the difficulty of finding a decent nail and hair place on the road and the attendant difficulty in getting things done the way she likes them…followed closely by every grocery store in the country having a different layout making finding your normal stuff difficult…followed closely by the lack of what she deems sufficient hot water. An RV only has an 8 gallon water heater and because of the short pipe runs the temperature set point for the heater is set lower than what would be common in a house…so having enough hot water to take a shower, wash your hair, and shave the larger areas that ladies have to shave (ha says Neil, any shaving is more than I have to do!) becomes difficult without taking a submarine shower which means turning the shower on and off. A submarine shower is really required anyway since the shower is pretty small compared to a house.

Hmm, looking at the above two paragraphs one might assume that we aren’t liking our new life since the plus paragraph is much shorter than the minus paragraph. That isn’t true though; as none of the minuses has really been anything other than a nit-noid sort of issue no different from the issues one has with a sticks and bricks house. Overall the pluses have far outweighed the minuses; we’ve seen a lot of places we never went before, and we’ve revisited several places we did go before to do other/different things.

I think that all of us would wholeheartedly recommend this lifestyle for anybody; and don’t really worry that you can’t afford to do it the same way we do. That might be true; but as I said we could easily have cut our expenses by 1/3 if we had to and we know lots of people doing it for even less than that including our friends Howard and Linda from RV-Dreams. They park in free/very low cost places and boondock without hookups a lot though…but that’s what they want to do anyway.

Would we do it again. Answer: YES, we should have done it sooner.

Monday morning we got up to (you guessed it) more rain but we were scheduled to move southwards so Neil put on rain gear and set up the outside while Connie did the inside. We pulled out about 0930 or so for our 250 mile trip back into the US in northeast Washington state. Our original destination was planned to be Oroville which is about 5 miles over the border; but we decided to press on another 30 miles or so and stop at Omak where there is a nice city owned park right on the river. Our decision came about because we discovered our original destination didn’t have pull throughs and since we were only staying one night before continuing our move to Leavenworth further south made the change.

We stopped at the border for about an hour as we got grilled by the Border Patrol ladies; they did an agriculture inspection on us and confiscated our limes and garlic head…turns out that both of those potentially have bugs in them that we’re trying to keep out of the US. After finishing that we headed out…glad to be back in our home country…and pulled into Carl Precht Memorial RV Park in Omak about 1400 or so. This was a pretty nice little park; full hookups although we didn’t use the sewer since it was just an over night stop. We didn’t bother unhitching; just put the forward jacks down to keep us from rocking all night. We ran out to Walmart and picked up some groceries and other stuff we had on our list, came home and had a pizza for dinner, and went to bed pretty early as we were really exhausted.

Tuesday morning we drove a mile into downtown Omak for breakfast. Our original plan was to eat at the Corner Bistro…but as we drove by we noticed that they had zero customers so we changed our mind and went to Magoo’s Family Restaurant instead. We knew we had made the correct decision when we noticed (a) that there were a dozen customers and (b) two local cops came in for breakfast about 5 minutes after we sat down. Connie had what was called “The Lighter Side” for breakfast; this consisted of 1 egg, bacon and a pancake so big the plate almost needed outriggers to hold it. Neil had a bacon, egg and cheese croissant. Both were pretty yummy. After breakfast we headed out on what we thought would be an easy day of travel to Leavenworth; about 110 miles or so.

We mostly drove right down the edge of the Columbia River as it heads south, then west toward Seattle. Along the way we stopped at the Davis Dam so we pulled in for a potty break and to look at the scenery. The dam creates Lake Pateros…and naturally we got a couple of pictures.

By this time the rain had pretty much stopped so we thought we were home free (boy, were we wrong). We arrived at the Pine Village KOA Campground in Leavenworth about 1230 and checked in. This park is actually really nice…but unfortunately isn’t quite a big rig friendly as the KOA main web site would lead you to believe…we made the reservation online and when the lady at the desk saw us she wondered if we would actually fit in our scheduled site. She said they would have never given us that site if we called them directly as it was really not suitable for a 5ver our size. Nonetheless; we headed up with our escort Rob to see if we could make it in. Here’s a shot of site R1 which we were originally supposed to park in.

As you can see from the above photo which was taken from just about as far forward as BAT could get without hitting a tree; the road comes uphill from the right side past the red car, does a 180 degree turn uphill and disappears out of the lower right side heading back toward the camp office. Site R1 is the empty one in the middle of the photo and it slopes up from the road. This means that we had to back the house back down the road, across the dip, and then up into the site. We gave it a good try for 30 minutes or so but our rear idler wheels which prevent the back end from dragging gouged up the graveled surface of the site; you can see the trench we cut (it’s the dark just down from the picnic table). Rob agreed with us that we just weren’t going to get into that site so he headed off to see where the office could relocate us. The basic problem is that they really don’t’ have good sites for a 5ver our size. After a couple of discussions between the park staff they decided to put us in site 25 instead; this is a pull through on the inside of the 180 degree turn you can see here about 2 sites further along. While this site was level enough for us to get into; it was really a tight squeeze to get the house in so that our forward jacks would not break the patio stones and still have enough clearance to get the bedroom slide out and park BAT and the car so they were out of the road. Here’s a shot of our final parking location; once we got to the site Neil spent almost another 30 minutes getting us situated so that all of the above items worked out ok; there just wasn’t much room to maneuver back and forth to reposition the rig to fit in the space.

As it is; the right side of BAT is within about a foot of the front of the house, the bedroom side is within about 6 inches of the tree you can see on the left front side of the house, and the car is parked behind the house (again with maybe a foot of clearance). It was a struggle but we finally made it. Connie was sort of bummed out that after such a nice travel day we had as much trouble getting situated as we did. Site R1 (our original site) is right out of the picture on the rift here; the SUV you can see at the far right here is the RV on the far left of the picture of site R1…Neil was standing just past the camper you see to the right of BAT looking towards the right of this photo when he took the picture of R1. We would have to think twice before we booked here again…although the park itself is beautiful the sites are really just too small for big rigs to fit into most of them.

To console ourselves; after Neil had had a bike ride we headed off to town for a beer. A quick search revealed the Muchnen Haus which is an nice outdoor biergarten (that’s German for beer garden) where we had a couple of brews…they were Dirty Face Amber from the local Iceberg Brewery.

Pretty decent beer; although not quite as good as the Sleeman Honey Black Lager we had the other day in Salmon Arm.

After that we came home and had a steak salad for dinner and sat down to watch some TV.

Tomorrow Connie picked out a 3.5 mile hike for the morning…it’s supposed to rain in the afternoon so our plan is to hike early then she’s going to work after lunch while Neil does some computer stuff.

Cyas.

Man; what a difference 250 miles and a day make…today was beautiful. We woke up to bright sunny skies so after Mass we headed off on a short hike of about 2 miles to Syphon Falls right near where we are parked. We parked, changed into hiking gear and headed up the slope…this was about a mile out and back hike with about 300 feet of elevation gain on the way out…which made it a fairly strenuous hike despite the short length. The trail was a bit damp from yesterday’s rain but not too bad…at least in hiking shoes. About halfway up we passed a family group coming down and one 20 or so year old young lady was in a dress that looked like she came from church and dress sandals (at least they were flats instead of heels). She was clearly overdress and undershoed for this particular hike…and we wondered what was she thinking; as the last quarter mile or so turned out to be pretty rocky and the steepest portion of the trail, hiking across it in a dress must have been quite an interesting sight.

Anyway; we spotted a butterfly and some wildflowers on the way up.

On arrival at the falls we got a few photos while Connie rested. The falls are a double cascade maybe 50 or 60 feet high.

By this time Connie had caught her breath so we headed back down to the car; and snapped another picture of the same butterfly type right next to where BAT was parked.

And then we headed off to lunch. We found a restaurant right on the lake and ate out on the veranda under an umbrella…BLT for Connie and a Chicken Breast Sandwich with everything for Neil along with a couple pints of Sleeman’s Honey Brown Lager…which turned out to be so tasty we had another pint each before taking a short walk along the boardwalk right outside the restaurant to see what sort of waterfowl we might happen across.

There was a duck we could not identify, our most far north sighting of a Great Blue Heron and a Mallard duck sitting on a log.

As well as a family of Osprey’s. Their nest was just about 30 yards or so away from where we were eating and we got some pictures from the restaurant but when we got out on the boardwalk we walked up to within about 10 yards or so for these shots (except for Dad getting the fish which was about 50 yards further down the boardwalk. first up was the female sitting on the nest…I don’t know if I told you this before but Osprey’s are really bad at nest building and their nests only have about a 30 percent probability of lasting through the nesting season. This is why you almost always see their nests built on top of a platform on a pole; those platforms are specifically put up for the Osprey’s to use for nesting; other birds won’t use them.

then the male bringing home a fish for lunch.

Once the fish was verified dead by the male he brought it over to the nest…wonder if he got a tip as the deliveryman.

And finally we spotted a pair of chicks peeking their beaks over the top of the next as the female was feeding them. They look to be only a few weeks old, maybe a month at the outside.

With that we headed home after fueling up BAT for tomorrow’s transit; we’ve decided to stop at Omak, WA at a city owned RV park. It’s about 40 miles further along than our original destination of Oroville but has pull throughs instead of just back in sites and for an overnight stop a pull through allows us to skip unhitching which makes our morning preps a whole lot simpler…and also shortens our drive on Tuesday into Leavenworth. After dinner Neil wandered over and talked to Andy Zust about the full-time lifestyle; he and his wife Lisa are originally from Switzerland and are considering full-timing when they retire. Neil also verified that our planned route tomorrow down BC-97 is fine for RV traffic as the truck GPS wants to take us further to the west and add about 100 miles which we really didn’t want to do. Andy confirmed that BC-97 is the main RV and truck route down to the states so we’re good to go.

Dinner was pork and potato hash…it turned out to be decent but not outstanding. We’ll be back in the US tomorrow and will regain cell phone reception which Connie is happy about…almost as happy as she was yesterday when we discovered the internet here at View Point was really good.

Cyas.

Well, today dawned with partly cloudy skies so Connie ran downtown to check the internet and road conditions heading west while Neil rigged the house for transit. The road east to Calgary is closed; the freeway was washed out by the flooding. Calgary downtown is underwater. He talked to one guy who was going to head up Icefields Parkway to Banff and then over to Edmonton and south; but that road is closed too. The only other way is to head west 40 miles, south 150, and then east right north of the border to a town east of Calgary about 200 miles named Medicine something or other. Trouble is; the river there is supposed to crest tomorrow and surely roads will be closed there as well. This leaves the guy Neil talked to with instead of a 170 mile trip east to Calgary (his home) a trip of probably 900 miles to get around…there just aren’t any more roads.

Anyway; the roads were clear heading west so we packed up and headed out about 1030 or so. We headed slightly east out of the campground to avoid downtown Banff with BAT and the house; but that exit turned out to be closed so we ended up going through downtown anyway. We got on Highway 1 (the Trans Canada Highway or TCH) and pretty much kept up to the speed limit. There were a couple of places right west of Banff where the road crews were clearing minor landslides but no delays there. Another construction area right after we passed Lake Louise for 15 miles or so and we were in the clear. It rained off and on but was mostly a pretty uneventful drive…the only drawbacks were the grades and curves and the river right next to the road with no guardrails most of the time…so it was one of those “really concentrate” days which equates to a really tiring day overall.

We arrived here in Salmon Arms to the Viewpoint RV park on the banks of Lake Shuswap and got parked nicely. There are only about a dozen sites here along with 6 or 8 cabins and hotel rooms. I’ll grab a photo of our site tomorrow…just too tired to go out and get one now even though it’s still light as sunset in southern Canada isn’t until about 2230 or so every night.

Neil did grab a couple of photos today; the first is a view from our campsite while he was breaking camp; he was intrigued by the mist in the valley with the mountain top poking through it across the other side of the Bow River through downtown Banff. The second is one of the wildlife corridors in the freeway portion of the TCH; there are fences on the side to keep animals off of the highway and every 5 miles or so one of these things. They have an undulating top and are seeded with grass and trees…the fences alongside the TCH funnel the wildlife to the corridor so they can get to the other side safely.

We’ll be here in Salmon Arm through Monday morning then will head south to cross the border back into the US and spend the night at Oroville, WA. 

Dinner today was leftover chicken curry with some noodles and some fresh baked rolls from the freezer. Pretty yummy, especially for something so easy. 

All of us are glad we missed out on the floods and road washouts; it would have really bummed us out to get stuck. Despite the off and on rain today it was actually not nearly as bad as it could have been.

We do have a new favorite place in Canada though; we drove through Canada’s Glacier National Park today and it’s even more impressive scenery than in Banff. Sorry, no photos as there was no place to pull off but with all the rain recently we saw a lot of temporary waterfalls that were cascading several thousand feet down the mountainside…we were bummed that we could not stop for a photo. If we get back up this way we’ll be sure to stop there for a couple of days; although it’s pretty much out in the boonies compared to Jasper and Banff so stepping out for a beer at the pub really isn’t possible. Beautiful scenery though; and well worth a consider if you’re heading up this way.

Cyas.

Well, we might be trapped here in Banff; but before I get into that here’s another edit of the shot we took at Moraine Lake over near Lake Louise the other day. Neil is playing around with the HDR stuff trying to find the most realistic combination of presets in the HDR application; he thinks he likes this version better than the one I posted the other day.

Anyhoo; let’s talk about being trapped (maybe) here in Banff. It’s Friday afternoon and we’re supposed to be leaving here tomorrow heading west to Salmon Arm. It’s been raining since late evening on Tuesday and we spent Wednesday and Thursday inside (well, we did go out and do laundry yesterday and went to the library for internet both days, but no fun stuff) and as it was continuing to rain today Neil headed out to fuel up BAT for tomorrow’s trip. There were 30 cars in the gas station and after fueling he asked the guy at the counter why the station was full…and got this incredulous look. The reply was the Banff was isolated from the east as there were mudslides on the road to Calgary along with flooding to the east and it would be closed for a week going that way. No need for us to panic; we’re pretty high but they are evacuating some low lying areas of Banff right next to the Bow River and sandbagging the hospital which is by the river…we’re about 500 feet up from there so aren’t in any danger of washing away. After filling BAT, he ran down and filled up the car as 2 of 3 gas stations in town are already out of gas. Good thing he got that done today; there won’t be any gas tomorrow. After filling up he went in and explained our situation to the people in the visitor center; currently Highway 1 is open to the west all the way past Salmon Arm (our next destination about 250 miles west) and is not expected to have any issues although we’ll verify before we head out in the morning.

Apparently all of the rain and flooding we’ve been having is mostly on the east side of the Rockies and the water and flooding is all going east. We’re pretty much at the high point; once we get about 15 miles west of here we cross the Continental Divide and at least as of now all looks OK going that direction. We’ll check tomorrow morning before heading out and hopefully will be able to transit to Salmon Arm as scheduled. We’re supposed to stay there two nights and then head south stopping just over the border in Oroville, WA for one night then continuing on to Leavenworth, WA for 3 nights before heading to Fort Lewis. Looking at the map we are well west of the mountains once we get back into WA and there should be no flooding to bother us; hopefully we’ll have smooth sailing west tomorrow and the weather in Salmon Arm (at least according to yesterday’s forecast) is supposed to be good. At worst we’ll just stay here a few more days and cancel out on Salmon Arm except for maybe an overnight along the way…we’ll modify our plans as we need to based on the weather and what’s open although we’re keeping our fingers crossed that once we get west of the divide the flooding wont’ be an issue anymore. We’ll try to verify that with looking at some weather maps when we have internet…we’re heading down in a bit to post this, get email, and have a beer as we’re going stir crazy sitting around the house.

I’ll post again tomorrow with updated results and status. Connie says she is so done with Canada after all the rainy weather we’ve had. I gotta sort of agree with her; we figured that June would be a good time to avoid as many tourists as possible but it’s been cold, rainy and damp and we almost wish we had waited another month…that would put us into the height of summer and crowds but at least it would be warm and once it’s summer the springtime rains typically have ceased. We were driven by the concert date in Edmonton though so waiting wasn’t really an option anyway.

Cyas.

Tuesday opened up dark and stormy; not the sunny morning that the weather guessers predicted. By about 1000 or so the skies to the west were brightening some so Neil rousted Connie away from her backed up Wall Street Journals and podcasts…and despite her insistence that it was supposed to rain Tuesday afternoon according to the forecast and the fact that they were totally wrong about the morning forecast we headed out but she wasn’t expecting anything good. Forty five minutes later we arrived at the parking lot at Lake Louise where we were going to hike up to the Agnes Lake Teahouse for lunch. Nothing like a 2 mile long 1000 foot elevation hike to get your appetite up. Before we headed up we stopped for some pictures of Lake Louise and the Victoria Glaciers. This first shot is the most famous view in Banff National Park; I’m sure most of you have seen a picture of this scene before…and the thing has been photographed a gazillion times…but now it’s a gazilion and one I guess. The two white patches you can see at the far end of the valley (it’s about a mile to the far shore and maybe another mile or two to the white patches…are the lower and upper Victoria Glaciers. Don’t know exactly how thick they are…but the second shot is a closeup and as you can see from the trees near the edges they are way thicker than the trees are tall so it’s gotta be at least 100 feet at the edge you can see of the upper one; it’s much thicker a bit further back from the edge. Compare this with the Athabasca Glacier we posted the photos of the other day; it’s about 30 feet near the edges and has been measured at thicker then the Eiffel Tower is call and that’s 900 something feet. The third photo is looking slightly to the left toward the canoe rental area and the last two one farther to the right toward the area where the teahouse is perched on the shore of Agnes Lake. The zoomed in one in the last two  is just a crop of the fourth shot that shows the location of the teahouse; it’s in the center of the red outlined section 1000 feet above Lake Louise. I’ll put in better photos of it as we got closer but wanted to give you a sense of where we were headed. From where all of these were taken we continued around the lake to the right another 300 yards or so then made climbed along the ridge on the right side of the lake until we were about underneath the teahouse and down to the far end of the lake. The trail then switched back on itself and continued to climb the ridge via switchbacks to Mirror Lake which is about 300 feet directly below the teahouse then continued up until we got there. The bare mound immediately to the left of the red highlight at the teahouse is Big Beehive, Little Beehive is on the other side, isn’t visible from this viewpoint, and you have to really use your imagination to call it a beehive anyway. Big Beehive on the other hand is almost perfectly named although you can’t really see that yet from this viewpoint.

After about a mile we got to the first switchback directly below the treehouse (although we didn’t know this at the time) and looked down from the right towards the far end of the Lake Louise, at this point we had done about 600 feet of the 1000 foot climb.

Continuing on another half mile we arrived at Mirror Lake; which was named because of it’s typical lack of any waves and the resulting reflectivity. The Indians said that it was used by Mountain Goats to comb out their beards, hence it was named Mirror Lake. While there we we grabbed a few more shots; first is the entirety of Mirror Lake with Big Behive in the background; for the second Neil walked another 50 feet or so to the left and aimed farther to the right. In the first the teahouse is behind the trees to the far right; in the second you can just see the treehouse. Start at the peak at top center and come straight down until you cross the tee line; then a little more down and to the left you’ll see the brown area…it’s at about 7 o’clock from a small area of what appears to be snow but is actually the glacier at Agnes Lake.

While at Mirror Lake we also spotted a group of Clarks Nuthatches and got a nice close up of one for you.

Headed up towards the teahouse which meant around Mirror Lake to the right and then zigzagging up the ridge we got a photo of the teahouse perched at the top of a waterfall;

followed a few minutes later by some closeups of the waterfall itself (see how a part of it comes out from underneath a snow cornice perched over the stream) as well as a picture of Connie perched at the falls right before we headed up the last 40 steps (luckily it was stairs since the cliff was pretty much vertical at that point). The first shot was taken from about where Connie is standing in the last shot and Neil turned 90 degrees to the left for the second one which shows the lower and wider portion of the falls itself.

With that done we climbed up the last 40 feet or so to Agnes Lake and the teahouse itself. Since the weather was temporarily pretty good (it had been getting continually better but we weren’t sure if it would continue or turn to clouds and rain again) Neil grabbed some shots of Lake Agnes; which is approximately circular, 400 yards or so in diameter and has a little waterfall coming in on the right side and a bunch of glaciers on the far side where the trail starts up the back side of Big Beehive. The fall is in the center behind the trees in the third photo but it was pretty small and you really can’t make it out in this photo…and the close up one (although it did show the falls but it’s more of a trickle down the ridge face than a proper falls) of the falls didn’t turn out very well. All of the white areas at the back side of the lake are glaciers and not snow and the tree lined slope on the left side is the back of Big Beehive where the trail heads up.

We had lunch on the porch at the teahouse and grabbed some photos looking back towards Lake Louise as well as a picture of the teahouse itself. We were sitting right in the middle of the porch you can see when we had lunch and the two guys standing at the railing on the far right are looking straight out towards Lake Louise. In the second photo the large building you can see at the left end of Lake Louise is the Chateau Lake Louise; a Fairmont hotel that probably costs 500 bucks a night for the cheapest room. All of the Lake Louise photos back at the beginning of the post were taken from right in front of the hotel and the canoe launching area we got the photo of is just to the right of the hotel, you can see the boathouse right over the top of the last large tree that juts up into the lake and immediately below the last white area (the parking lot) on the back side of the lake. The last photo after the teahouse is from the far side of the falls (Neil walked about 50 feet to the right from where the teahouse photo was taken) looking almost straight down. Pretty impressive views from up here, huh?

With lunch done and pix taken we headed back down…and I gotta tell you it was a lot easier on the downward leg. About half a mile down Neil wanted to hike around a side trail and see if we could get a picture of Little Beehive so Connie rested on the side of the trail since she wasn’t climbing anymore. He hiked a kilometer or so around and got a shot of it…but it really doesn’t look much like a beehive at all.

We stopped at Mirror Lake again to grab this picture of a Ground Squirrel (it’s sort of like a chipmunk but larger, brown instead of reddish, and with 2 light stripes on it).

and then continued on down to the parking lot. The hike up took 2 hours and 10 minutes and the hike down 1 hour and 15 minutes so we made much better time with way fewer stops to catch our breath on the way back; the only times we really slowed down were for tricky sections of the trail. After a water and bathroom break we headed off for our second stop of the day…it was 1600 by this time so we decided that since the weather had drastically improved and the forecast for the next 3 days was rain to get in everything we wanted to do over in the Lake Louise area which is about 40 miles from Banff. So off we headed to Moraine Lake. A moraine is leftover from the glacial days and is essentially the line of rubble that the glacier leaves behind on the side edges of it’s path. It’s usually piled up are of rocks and rubble (well, if you can call house sized boulders rubble) and is usually at least several hundred feet tall. The area between the moraines was gouged out by the glacier and when the glacier retreated the depression fills up and becomes a lake. Lakes formed by Moraines are almost always long, thin, and very deep in the middle with steep valley walls surrounding them…these are the harder granite type rocks that the glacier could not grind into rubble. These views are looking southwest; essentially down a curved valley toward the river. The glacier likely came in from behind where the picture was taken and ground it’s way down the valley away and to the right. You can see the moraine rubble piled on the left side of the lake and the steeply sloping valley  walls. The lake is about 300 feet deep in the middle and is maybe 500 or 500 yards wide at it’s widest. The mountains you can see on the far side of the lake continue around to the left past where the picture was taken from and are all about the same height. The mountain peaks are over 5000 feet higher than the surface of the lake and the horizontal distance from lake to peak is barely over a mile which results in about a 45 degree slope between the lake and mountains. There aren’t any huge peaks on the right side of the lake as you look at it…I don’t know why that is although it is on the inside of the curve of the lake. My guess is that the far side mountains are granite and the near side ones were softer material and were hence ground down as the glacier came in from behind the photo spot then was turned by the harder rock mountains to the right towards the river, grinding away the right side peaks as it moved. Connie stayed in the car here…we had seen Moraine Lake before on our last trip, she was tired, and it was almost a 2 kilometer trip up and over a 200 foot tall pile or rocks to get to the photo spot; the view from the parking lot is looking about 40 degrees to the left and you really can’t see much. 

As we headed back down the road towards Lake Louise and Highway 1 we stopped to get this picture of the mountain ridge on the left (south) side of Moraine Lake. Mount Babble is the third peak from the right that you can see and is immediately to the left of where the pictures above were taken from. From this viewpoint the end of Moraine Lake is around the corner past the trees on the far right and another mile or so down the road with this view being almost south as opposed to the west-southwest orientation of the above shots. Looking at this topography you can see how the glacier came in from the left before being turned to it’s right by the mountains. I don’t know why the lake doesn’t continue up into this area; probably because it’s higher and the glacier flowed downwards into a pre-existing valley over a lip of harder rock which was left behind as it retreated to keep the lake in place. At the far end of the lake there is another pile of rubble that was pushed in front of the glacier as it moved; this formed a natural dam to pen the lake into the valley.

Continuing on back to the highway; we turned west and shortly crossed into British Columbia on our way to Yoho National Park to see the Takakkaw Falls on the Yoho River. Unfortunately the road was not opened yet; not sure if it was bears, not finished clearing the roads yet, or just they haven’t finished repairs due to the avalanches farther up and higher into the valley. We could only get as far as the confluence of the Yoho and Kicking Horse Rivers where there were some very nice rapids that one could not get close enough to get a picture of due to the trees. We wondered why the park service put up nice story boards explaining why the rivers are two different colors when there’s not much of a view. The first shot is of the Kicking Horse river which is clearer and bluer since the silt in it has settled out in some lakes and slower sections of the river upstream. The second shot is about 90 degrees to the left of the first and just barely shows the bottom of the Kicking Horse with the Yoho River coming in from the left. The Yoho is much milkier in color since it (like the Kicking Horse) is glacial melt fed and hence full of silt but doesn’t have lakes or slower sections to allow the silt to settle out. Once the rivers come together the Yoho continues on southwest towards it’s eventual destination in the Pacific.

A few miles downstream we crossed back to the south side of the Yoho to rejoin the highway for our trip homewards. Here are a few shots from the bridge and banks of the Yoho…which was flowing at 12-15 knots here. The likelihood of surviving a fall into this river is essentially zero I’m guessing from the current and many rocks to bash your head in. The third picture is of Cathedral Mountain and the bridge where Neil was taking most of the photos; it’s another of those 5000 foot elevation changes in the space of a mile or so that are so frequent here in the Banff area. We continue to be impressed by those things…no matter how many of them we happen upon.

Heading back homeward; we discovered that were climbing up Kicking Horse Pass which has a grade of 4.5 percent in a very narrow valley pass up to the higher valleys where Lake Louise and Banff are located. As you go west from here you’re heading down into a lower elevation area of British Columbia. Back in the day; the railroad followed the modern day roadbed almost exactly and the 4.5 percent grade was the highest railway grade in North America (they usually like 1.5 percent grade maximum). This meant that a  5 car train going down the pass had the front of the locomotive over 15 feet lower than the back of the caboose…which given the relatively inefficient train brakes of the time resulted in lots of train derailments. To solve this; in 1907 a couple of bright railroad engineers discovered that the Swiss had built what are essentially switchbacks for trains but at the corners of the switchbacks instead of making a sharp almost 180 degree turn (which trains can’t do) they tunneled into the mountain and made as tight a loop as possible then coming back out of the mountain 50 or so feet higher then they went in almost overhead the tunnel entrance but headed the other direction. There are two of these spiral tunnels which add about 5 kilometers of length to the track up the valley but reduce the grade to a manageable 2.5 percent maximum. Here are a couple of photos of dioramas to give you a better understanding. The first is an elevation model, the second an overall shot of the valley and the third a closeup of the spiral tunnel section of the track. Uphill is to the left in all 3 cases. Looking t the terrain model the trains came in from the top of the pass at the upper left then entered the tunnel mouth on the right, circling around and coming back out the tunnel mouth a little to the left and down from the entrance. Continuing on across the current day road it entered the second mouth at the far left then came out right where you can see the red train car, paralled the current day road, passing underneath the current day road and then out of the model to the right. A pretty ingenious way to solve a problem I think. The tunnels are still used and have doors at each end to keep as much cold air out as possible…the tunnels leak water some and ice builds up on the inside; the doors minimize the buildup by increasing the average tunnel temperature. The railroad has some specially equipped train cars that essentially have big ice scrapers on them that they drag through the tunnel (actually they probably push them through to clear the ice before it damages the locomotive) to get rid of ice on the walls and roof.

With that our day was done; an uneventful 40 mile trip back to Banff where we had dinner at the Bear Street Tavern. We did spot what we believed was a wolf patrolling the outside of the wildlife fence along the highway but there was no place to pull over for a picture since it’s a feeeway. This is the only highway we’ve ever seen that the transportation folks tried to make wildlife proof. The entire length of it is lined on both sides by a wildlife proof fence about 10 feet high with rocks piled along the bottom. Wherever there is an exit/entrance to the highway the fence comes right up to the edge of the road and there is a 10 foot wide cattle grate (they call them Texas gates up here) which animals won’t venture onto since their feet will fall though the grate. This keeps wildlife from getting onto the highway. About every 5 miles or so there is what looks like an over pass but is actually a wildlife corridor. They are about twice as wide as a four lane overpass would be, have an undulating upper surface that is covered with dirt, grass, and trees…and are fenced on the sides with the fences connecting to the fence along the side of the highway. Thus the wildlife has a way to remain outside the fence and still get to the other side of the highway. Another pretty ingenious idea…but I guess after getting who knows how many cars totaled from hitting bears or elk or whatever in the middle of the night this is a cheaper solution overall. I’ll remember to get a picture of one of the wildlife corridor overpasses the next time we’re out and add it into a post so you can see one.

Wednesday and Thursday it’s supposed to rain so we’re going to the library in a bit for Connie to work and Neil to surf…after that it’s leftover chicken for dinner. We slept really late today as we were both exhausted after yesterday. It was a 4 mile hike for Connie with 1000 feet up and then down; Neil’s total was closer to 6 miles and 1500 feet by the time you add in his side trip to Little Beehive and the hike over the moraine rubble pile at Moraine Lake. 

Cyas.

Today dawned and turned out to be a picture perfect day. After breakfast and coffee we headed off to Mass in town and discovered that people here are really possessive about aisle seats in the church. The church has no side aisles and only a center aisle. We got there right before Mass started and the church appeared to be full with about 30 people standing in the back. We looked up the aisle anyway and found at least 10 pews with a couple sitting on the aisle end and not letting anyone else in. We had to go to 3 pews and tell them to move or let us in before one couple finally moved but even then they glared at us. We would have been happy to cross over and sit on the interior or sit on the aisle…we were amazed how rude the parishioners here are. Oh well, that’s the way it goes I guess. After church we stopped by Starbucks for a couple of hours for internet and a cup of coffee for Connie then came home for lunch.

After a bike ride for Neil…he went about 9 or 10 miles but it was down to the Bow River Falls in town so it was a nice 500 feet or so climb back up the hill to the campground…and he got stuck in the middle of the Banff Classic bike race for a bit; and then some lunch we decided to just take a drive today and see some of the sights without hiking very far. We have planned a 4 mile hike up to the Lake Agnes Tea House tomorrow  but it’s a thousand feet climb up and back down so it will be a pretty decent hike…so we decided to just take it easy today and headed off for a drive of about 20 miles total to visit 3 lakes; Cascade, Johnson, and Minnewanka…the three get progressively larger and Minnewanka is the largest lake in Canada.

Our first stop at Cascade…was a complete bust mostly because there wasn’t any water in the lake. A few small puddles here and there but even if it had been full it was probably only 2 or 3 acres (maybe 8 or 10 typical house lot sized) total. We parked, walked down the path to the lake, turned around and left and headed for Johnson Lake.

Shortly after getting back on the main road toward Johnson Lake we did spot a nice waterfall coming off the side of Mount Norquay on the north side of Canada HIghwayt 1…and snapped this shot. The trees at the base of the mountain are maybe 300 yards from where we were parked and the mountain rises immediately past there about 4500 feet higher than the parking area and it’s maybe 2 miles away to the summit. Here are both a wide and closer view.

Continuing along we arrived at Johnson Lake where we snapped a photo of a couple of guys fly fishing for reader Ron as well as a nice vista view of Lake Johnson looking east toward the peaks. On the way out of the side road to the lake we stopped by a small hydro electric dam and grabbed a photo of what a local told us was a Squawfish which is apparently a member of the shark family. Sorry about the photo quality; Neil was shooting though about 3 feet of water with some sort of pond scum on the surface so it was the best he could do. We also passed by the far end of Johnson Lake and got another shot looking back toward the west as well as a nicely framed one through the trees.

As we headed towards Lake Minnewanka we ran into a sheep jam where we spotted a male Bighorn Sheep’s harem, a close up of what appears to be the alpha female, and then a shot of the male a little up the road. There was a youngster as well but we didn’t get a good shot of it without a car in the photo.

We arrived at Lake Minnewanka and got a lot of really decent shots of the scenery around the lake…including one wide panorama shot and one of Connie resting on a log while Neil was off down at the shore getting the photos…she had street shoes on instead of sneakers and decided the shore was too rocky to walk across in them.

With that we hopped back in the car and headed home. Right before we got back to the campground we spotted a local piece of scenery here in Banff…it’s a couple of hoodoos which are spires of harder rock that were originally surrounded by softer rock which eroded away over the millennia leaving just the funny shaped tower. While he was out there; Neil also grabbed a few shots of the Bow Valley. That’s the Bow River running through the bottom of it and Banff is at the far end of the valley; the hotel you can see in the distance in some of the pictures is the famous Banff Fairmont Hotel…it’ quite nice. We might have to run over and have afternoon tea before we leave. We also spotted our last wildlife of the day; a Canadian Ground Squirrel.

And finally; a shot of our view from site 841 in Tunnel Mountain Campground…beautiful isn’t it??

We’ve decided that overall we think the views here in Banff are better than those up in Jasper…but mostly they’re a different type of view. Up in Jasper the absolute magnitude of the valley to peak rise is larger than it is in Banff; but in Banff the rises occur over much less horizontal distance making the ridges steeper. In addition; the peaks are a lot closer than they are up in Jasper…up there there might be a rise of 5000 feet to a ridge 6 or 8 miles away where as down here the rise might only be 3500 feet but the peak is within 2 miles of you so the apparent steepness and rise is greater. This leads to what we believe are more impressive views; a lot of the peaks look like near vertical rises. The peaks down here also don’t have (generally) as much tree cover as farther north; with the steeper slopes and solid rock vice rock covered with dirt landscape there are a lot more sheer, bare ridges than farther north. There’s also a lot less snow on the sides of the peak…due primarily to them being steeper so the snow doesn’t stick. You really can’t go wrong with either though…the people up in Jasper were more friendly and the town is much smaller with more of a ski bum small town feel than you get here. Banff certainly isn’t metropolitan of course; but it’s about twice as large as Jasper and just has a lot greater selection of everything…pubs, groceries, coffee cafes, and pretty much everything else. Banff also has a lot more hills and grades in town where as Jasper is small enough that the whole town sits on the valley floor…Banff is larger and the valley is narrower so the town has spread a lot onto the lower slopes of the various peaks around the valley.

Dinner was chicken with some yummy garlic, basil cream sauce and mashed taters. Today’s planned hike at Lake Louise for some photos (you’ll recognize a lot of the photos we take there as several lakes in the area are particularly famous views) and a hike up to the Lake Agnes Tea House for lunch…was postponed until Tuesday since Connie didn’t feel well today. It rained pretty hard during the time we woulda been hiking anyway so it’s probably for the best.

Cyas.

Well, another travel day…another rainy day. Friday dawned as it has on several travel days the last month or so with rain off and on, some wind, and generally poor to no visibility. Nonetheless; we finished up getting ready to travel (we had dumped tanks and stowed the sewer hose Thursday evening so we didn’t have that much to do except stow inside and hitch up. We headed out and our first planned stop was at the Icefields Center about 70 miles south to see the glaciers. On the way we (well, Connie) stopped and grabbed a couple of photos of some waterfalls that we saw coming off the side of the mountains…unfortunately we had to pass on the best one as there was no place to pull over. The neat one was probably a 1500 foot drop in 2 steps almost straight down off the mountains on the east side of the river valley we were driving down…but with no place to stop safely a photo just wasn’t in the cards.

We also stopped as planned at the Icefields Center; here are a couple of photos of the glaciers in the area…which is the largest concentration of glaciers in southwest Canada. The glaciers are up to 800 or so feet thick in places…we passed on the opportunity to drive out onto the glacier surface as it is 30 bucks apiece or so and we still had another 100 miles to go before parking. This is a shot of the largest of the bunch…Athabasca Glacier; notice just below the center of the photo the parking lot full of cars and buses…this gives you a nice perspective of the scale of this sheet of ice. From the cars up to the edge of the glacier is about 1/4 of a mile and the ice right at the front edge (we walked up to it the last time we were here) is about 30 feet thick or so.

For comparison; here’s a shot of the same glacier from our visit back in October 2010. Notice how the glacier has actually grown in size from side to side and also extends a little farther down the slope than it did back then…granted it’s spring instead of late summer when the glacier is at it’s smallest size of the year but it doesn’t look like Global Warming is melting to us at this point. I’ve also included a shot from back in 2010 of Connie up at the edge of the glacier. Notice how all her warm clothes are on and her hat is firmly tied down. While we didn’t walk up there this time; on our last visit the temperature down in Banff was in the 60s and at the Icefields Center it was about 45. Walking up to the edge of the glacier the temp there dropped to probably the high 20s and also the wind picked up to 30 miles an hour at least. The glacier itself is sloped at about 15 degrees or so and since it’s frozen the air sits on top of and cools to freezing which makes it more dense and then it just rolls down the glacier until it falls off…the result is it’s really windy right near the glacier but by the time you get down to the cars you can see the wind has pretty much died off and the temp is probably 20 degrees warmer than right by the ice edge.

We arrived in Banff and made our way to the Tunnel Mountain RV Park where we’re parked nicely in site 841; a full hookup pull through site. You can just see one of the mountains over the top of the rig and I’ve also included a second shot down the road looking east with another nice mountain view…these shots were taken Saturday when it wasn’t raining vice Friday when we arrived.

We ran downtown and had a couple brews at the Bear Street Tavern. It’s claim to fame according to the Banff Dining Guide was “ridiculously good pizza” and we can attest to that. We had two; both thin crust…the first was Forest Mushrooms, Basil, Pine Nuts, and Truffle Oil…and the second was Salami and Cheese. They also serve pizza here with a side of honey and pepper oil…what you do is put some honey on the plate in a circle like a dam and then fill in the middle with pepper oil and then dip the pizza in it. Neil thought it was really good…Connie not so much. The Nut Brown Ale was outstanding though. Saturday dawned as the forecast beautiful day so after breakfast and coffee we headed off for a six mile hike starting almost in downtown Banff at the Hot Springs parking lot. It was and out and back on a 3 kilometer paved trail (we saw a lot of people biking out to the end of the paved section) followed by a 2 kilometer loop through Sundance Canyon then back on the paved section. With a 500 foot vertical rise we thought it would be a lot more challenging than it turned out to be.

Right after leaving the parking lot we spotted this huge bull elk right off of the path. We eased in a bit hoping he would leave so we could get by and eventually he did…Neil forgot to get a photo of the front of him but only remembered to get this one after we passed him.He was easily 5 feet high to the shoulder and the rack was almost 4 feet wide. Quite an impressive specimen.

Heading on up the path we followed the Bow River and stopped a half mile up or so for lunch and some photos of the spectacular views. The first one is across the river, the second downstream to the right and the third upstream to the left. The last one is an HDR shot of almost the same perspective as the third one.

After lunch we continued on up the path and after another half mile or so the trail turned to the left away from the river and up towards the canyon area. From there the paved path sloped continually upwards until it ended at a bike parking area/picnic area at the entrance of the canyon. We stopped at the picnic area for a few minutes and Neil was intrigued by the bright sunshine passing through the tree canopy so he leaned back and snapped a series of HDR bracketed photos he used to construct this shot. Let’s call it your art appreciation moment for the day.

After a brief rest we headed into Sundance Canyon itself…the hike through the canyon is about 1 kilometer up right alongside the river with most of the 500 foot elevation change in the canyon. At the south end of the canyon the trail loops back to the right and along the top of the ridge before descending back to the picnic area. Right after entering the canyon we spotted this huge rock slab that sticks out over the river at about a 45 degree angle; this chunk that hangs out over the river is probably 70 or 80 feet long and is only supported at the base on the right side of the river.

Here’s an HDR shot of the small waterfall you can see to the far left of the shot above.

Continuing on up through the canyon we stopped for photos at a variety of small waterfalls and rapids. Good thing we stopped for photos as this part was really steep. Lots of nice short falls, lichens and really brilliant green pine evergreen trees.

After that last one we crossed the river on the bridge you can’t see immediately out of the photo bottom and climbed up to the top of the ridge; then turned north back towards the picnic area. Along the way we spotted some views of the mountains across the other side of Highway 1 that were definitely worth the walk.

Shortly after these two were taken we got back into the woods and then onto a series of switchbacks down the ridge ending at the picnic area where we rested awhile as Connie’s hip was hurting a bit and it sprinkled a bit so we waited in a dry shelter, had a snack and a drink then headed downhill once the rain stopped. As we headed down the paved path we noticed a notch in the mountain opposite that we didn’t see on the way up (that old no eyes in the backs of our heads thing I guess). You can’t really tell it form the photo but this notch is almost like somebody gouged out a square channel down the mountain side that is 2000 feet high, probably a hundred yards wide and a hundred yards deep.

Shortly after this we got back down the hill and rejoined the river for the relatively easy stroll back to the parking area…although we did spot some finds on the way back. First up was a Common Goldeneye Duck

followed shortly by a beaver dragging some dinner back to it’s lodge. He went right by the duck who took off in a panic.

and then a bee on some nice yellow flowers.

Then we finally found an example of what we thought would be a very common photo…some sort of wildlife down by the water. We were about to decide that none of the animals up here ever needed a drink.

Shortly after that shot we got back to the visitor center where we had another rest for Connie’s hips then wandered down the hill to the car and headed home. We were originally going to drop the cameras off at home and grab our computers for a beer and internet downtown…but as we drove through town we noticed that the street festival we saw setting up this morning had gotten into full swing and there were huge traffic jams and no parking downtown along with several detours. We decided that beer and internet wasn’t worth the effort tonight so decided to eat at home instead…then get some internet at Starbucks after Mass in the morning.

Dinner was a couple of frozen burgers from Walmart, some sautéed onions, and some Taco Rice that we had in the cabinet along with a wine cooler and then a Dark and Stormy along with some TV.

Tomorrow is Mass and internet and then we’ll probably go on some sort of drive instead of another long hike…that way we can have a sort of rest day before another hike on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday it’s supposed to be rainy so Connie will probably work depending on how the weather turns out. We’re kinda tired though…been hiking almost every day since we arrived in Jasper almost two weeks ago and we need a rest day but don’t want to totally waste a decent weather day.

Our last find though; was another Golden Marmot…we got this one right outside the house maybe 4 feet from our power pedestal and closer than that to the rig itself. Cute little guy (or gal), ain’t it.

Cyas.

We hemmed and hawed a bit this morning before finally deciding that the weather was going to cooperate enough to get in our planned hike…which was a 3 mile round trip hike from downtown Jasper up to Marjorie Lake and back. The sun kept coming out and in but we finally decided that since this is our last day here to head out anyway. While Connie was hemming and hawing Neil went out and filled BAT with fuel for tomorrow’s travel day.

It took us a bit to find the parking lot as they’re building some new townhouses along the back street in town and the parking lot road was hidden beyond the construction equipment. Once we figured out where to go we parked, donned our hiking shoes, and headed off.

We were hiking along, plodding uphill when about halfway out we came to a complete stop and Connie saying “Uh, oh.”. Neil looked ahead and sure enough; about 20 or so yards up the trail coming our way was a mostly full grown bear. We had been talking enough so it was surely aware of our presence but had it’s head down walking along eating berries. We stopped and talked louder hoping it would leave but it kept coming…at that point we decided that bears had the right of way and headed perpendicular to the trail to the right (uphill) about 20 yards or so. The bear pretty much completely ignored us…walked past us and then exited the trail and headed downhill. We paralleled the trail another 20 or 30 yards then climbed back down…and continued our hike with Neil keeping a careful eye behind us just in case. Sorry, he didn’t get any pictures…he wanted to but Connie was sort of agitated about this encounter so he decided to just calm her down instead. 

We hiked the remainder of the way to Marjorie Lake and sat down for a few minutes to have a snack; then grabbed a few photos of the lake and views…it was OK but not as spectacular as others we have seen here and with the overcast, cloudy day was only an OK photo (well, actually 3 photos starting at the left side of the view and traversing to the right).

With that we decided to head back down…it was a bit cool today and we left our long sleeved shirts in the car although we did have our rain gear in the backpack so could have donned that if we really needed to.

Connie was paranoid all the way back and was sure that the bear was lying in wait for her…despite Neil’s assurances that the bear had left the trail and headed downhill and that people are not a normal part of a bear’s diet.

Once back to the car we stopped and got some groceries…the selection in the stores is really lousy compared to what we’re used to in the US and the prices are 20 to 25 percent more expensive.

We’ll head off for a beer and some internet in a bit and then home for leftovers for dinner…then we’ll pack up some stuff and get ready to travel tomorrow. We’ve got about 175 miles to go straight down Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway to Banff; our RV parks is actually right next to the hoodoo overlook (hoodoos are stone column shaped things, I’ll grab some pictures while we’re there for you) that we visited on our previous trip to Banff a couple of years back.

Since we had pretty much lousy pictures today Neil went ahead and decided to play with some of them a bitty to enhance the colors and try to make them look more like they did in the wild. First up is a more real looking version of the third Marjorie Lake photo above. This one looks a lot closer to what we actually saw with our eyes than the one above.

That worked so well that he went ahead and messed around with a couple of the other ones we got earlier in the week. First up; Annette Lake and then Mt Edith Cavell from yesterday.

The Athabasca River just upstream of Athabasca Falls from our drive last Tuesday.

A couple of Medicine Lake from two of our visits there.

A really nice reflected view of the mountains in Jasper Lake, it was really calm that day and the reflections were like a mirror.

And finally two of the 5 lakes from the Valley of Five Lakes Hike that we took the other day on the rainy day.

All of those were touched up a bit with some post processing techniques…the net effect is that the colors of the water and the light in the trees looks a lot closer to reality than the original shots we posted. None of them are new; all are the same shots and crops that I put up earlier in the week but he tried to give a better feel for how beautiful the colors actually are since the originals look a little flat compared to reality. These are the neatest green or aqua or blue colors you can imagine. As I previously talked about when I first introduced you to the concept of HDR or High Dymanic Range photography; the eye can see a range of about 11 stops of light (a stop is a quantitive measure of how much light there is)…whereas the camera can only see about 3 stops. Since the eye can see so much more it’s really difficult to get a finished photo to look realistically like the original scene was…it’s easy to make a photo look decent but there’s a difference between decent and realistic. Anyhow; he was bored this evening and wanted to see if he could make some of our shots look better so let us know in the comments how you like them.

Cyas.

Today started out pretty overcast and rainy; but that’s OK because Connie needed to work anyway. So after breakfast and coffee we headed off to the Snowcone Cafe where Connie bought 2 hours of internet access and got to work catching up on her email and student scheduling. Neil walked up to the visitor center and used the internet there since he didn’t need as much room to spread out and the wifi is free there. We worked, web browsed and read email until about 1130 and then went home for lunch. During the morning it mostly cleared up and was decent by lunch so we headed off for our planned activities. Good thing we did as the afternoon got better and better the longer we were out.

We originally scheduled a hike along the Athabasca River through the Old Fort Loop but it turned out that road was closed due to the elk calving area so we decided to go to the nearby Annette Lake instead. On the way to the Maligne Lake Road turnoff to head to the lake we ran into another jam so stopped and got some pictures. What was nice about this grouping was that there was both a buck (with antlers in velvet) and a calf in the group. We don’t if this is a family group or if they just happened to be in the same vicinity.

We continued on to Annette Lake and hiked completely around the shore of the lake (about 1.5 miles or so)…the lake is roughly triangular in shape. Here is a series of shots from various viewpoints as we walked around…we were really impressed by the colors and reflections of the mountains as well as the really nice shots with the mountains in the background as the afternoon got better and better…this series of shots covers just about 360 degrees around the lake.

Along the way we spotted an abandoned nest; due to the size we are pretty sure it belonged to an eagle.

and then at about the same location as the 3rd lake shot (the one taken between the trees above) we spotted a bald eagle soaring over the lake. Don’t know what it was doing…it was likely too high to be hunting for something to eat…so it was just likely just soaring over it’s domain.

With that our hike around Annette Lake was done so we headed off to our second destination for the day…Pyramid Lake. Along the way we spotted a couple of pictures that I’m putting in here for our reader Neil’s older brother Ron. He commented on the blog a day or two ago and wondered why all these really picturesque lakes must be chock full of trout and there must be really good fishin’ in them. We haven’t spotted many fishermen on the lakes and rivers but we did see these two so Neil grabbed pictures of them. No word on whether either of them had any luck or went home empty handed…and the first one looks an awful lot like novelist Tom Clancy.

Once we arrived at the far end of Pyramid Lake we walked across the short bridge to the island and hiked around the perimeter trail on the 5 or 6 acre island. Along the way we got a really great view of Pyramid Mountain. This mountain peak is maybe 2 miles from where the photo was taken…starting the climb almost immediately after the shoreline and rises 5,000 feet higher than the level of the lake. It’s pretty much a solid chunk of rock and looking at it we were pretty sure that you ain’t climbing it without equipment as it looks way too steep to hike up. Here are a series of 3 pictures zooming in a bit for each one so you can see the inhospitability of the climb.

This is one of the two most impressive mountains we’ve seen on our trip west. It isn’t the tallest at only about 8500 feet or so but in terms of the abruptness of the rise and the elevation change over small distances is really almost at the top of the list. As you can see in the first shot it starts rising almost from the edge of the lake for about a mile then essentially goes straight up.

After that we crossed back to the car and went to the Jasper Brewing Company for dinner again; decided to save our leftovers from last night until tomorrow when we’ll be getting ready for a travel day on Friday. Based on a tip we got from a couple of locals who were birdwatching around Annette Lake we decided after dinner to have an evening wildlife safari out towards Maligne Lake again in hopes that more wildlife would be out as the sun started to go down. Our plans were partially successful but since it was only 1800 or so and it doesn’t get fully dark until 2300 it wasn’t quite as nice as we expected. Nonetheless; we did happen across another bull elk with what will truly be a magnificent rack once it gets out of velvet in the fall. This guy would be a trophy bull most places but is protected in the park.

and Connie’s favorite

As we headed back from our turnaround shortly after encountering this specimen we got a nice shot of the Maligne RIver as it cascades down the mountainside toward the Athabasca River

and then noticed this spectacular slot canyon right off the road…it’s about 15 feet wide and probably 200 feet deep.

Shortly after we got back onto Highway 16 for the drive back home we spotted the best view of Mount Edith Cavell that we’ve seen…it’s named after a World War I canadian hero (don’t know what she did) and Neil thinks it’s the best looking mountain here. It’s the snow covered one just left of center…all the snow you can see just below the shadow line is actually a glacier that is probably 200 or 300 feet thick ice. I’ll try to get a better picture when we’re a little farther south tomorrow or Friday as we drive to Banff but this is one of the few clear and sunny views we’ve had of this mountain although you can see it from just about anywhere we’ve been in the park.

After that we went home and watched some TV until bedtime. Don’t know what’s planned for tomorrow yet…we need to fuel up BAT, get some groceries, and get ready to travel on Friday and Connie also wants to work some more (she’s a bit behind due to lack of convenient internet in Canada)…but if the weather is clear like it’s supposed to be we’ll most likely do something fun as well.

Cyas.